On June 8, Brian Moore, the 2008 Socialist Party presidential nominee, filed his brief in Moore v Hosemann, 09-60272, in the 5th circuit. The issue is whether the Secretary of State should have accepted the paperwork to put Moore on the ballot last year.
Mississippi election laws generally specifiy that certain paperwork is due by 5 p.m. of the deadline day. However, the law does not set a time deadline for paperwork involving presidential elector candidates; the law merely says the deadline is 60 days before the general election. Therefore, a neutral person would probably maintain that papers delivered on the deadline day are timely, if filed on the evening of that day. If it is impractical for a state office to remain open past 5 p.m., a reasonable state office would probably accept paperwork by the start of business on the next day, if the paperwork had been shoved under the door during the night. However, the Secretary of State did not accept the paperwork, which arrived at 5:10 p.m. on the deadline. The Moore lawsuit argues that the Secretary of State was wrong. It also argues that, in any event, the U.S. Constitution requires that state legislatures set the rules for presidential elections, and that the Secretary of State had no authority to administratively set a 5 p.m. deadline when the legislature itself had not done so.
It may seem that the practical significance of this lawsuit is small. On the other hand, this type of dispute is surprisingly common. Paperwork for candidates is frequently filed in the last hour on the deadline day, and there have been many legal disputes over whether or not the paperwork was submitted barely in time, or barely out of time.
